Stacked Up? Your Guide to Reporting Across the DoubleClick Digital Marketing Stack

What is the DoubleClick Stack?

This is the industry name for Google’s range of integrated marketing platforms. Our three most frequently used stack platforms at Periscopix are (prepare for acronyms galore): DoubleClick Campaign Manager (DCM), DoubleClick Bid Manager (DBM) and DoubleClick Search (DS). Integration with Google Analytics Premium (GAP) allows us to use the platforms for more than just Programmatic Display and Paid Search; we push DoubleClick products to their limits for our clients, delivering industry leading results whilst discovering nuances and new features along the way. Here’s how the DoubleClick jigsaw fits together:

Reporting across the stack

One of the benefits of stack platforms is an integrated, true view of channel performance, which means deduping conversions. There’s no longer a need to expose whether each channel is over reporting “what if a customer sees a Display ad and clicks a Paid Search ad in their path to conversion?”, “how can I see how each channel really contributed to conversions?” Google have applied a deduped last click model as default across all 3 DoubleClick platforms.

Last Click deduping – what this means for you

Let’s imagine Maisie is your customer; she’s done a bit of online research on which dress she wants to wear for her birthday, including seeing your Display ad, doing a natural search (DS terminology for Organic Searches through the engines it can track) through Google, and then you’ve remarketed to her through DS Paid Search, after which she’s purchased the dress. Here’s her path:

Now you want to know how each channel performed, leading to the purchase. The automatic deduping across the stack causes the Last Click to take all credit across all platforms:

Platform Credit

DoubleClick Search: | Paid Search gets 100% of the credit, as it’s the last click in her path.

DoubleClick Campaign Manager | Paid Search gets 100% of the credit, as it’s the last click in her path.

DoubleClick Bid Manager | Display gets 0% of the credit for this conversion, as DBM relies on DCM data. DCM knows a Paid Search click was the last interaction in a path, so gives no credit to any previous interaction.

Google Analytics | Again, Paid Search gets 100% for this conversion, as GA reports on a Last Non-Direct model.

It’s not just the Last Click model you need to think about; here are some knowledge bites we’ve learnt along the way:

+ Natural Search can either be included in the deduping or you can opt-out, so only your paid marketing channels ever receive credit.

+ Let’s say you’ve been running Display through DBM for 6 months already, and now you’re about to launch Paid Search through DS. If the platforms are linked, then DS activity will be included in the deduping process; for any view-through conversion which is followed by a Paid Search click, DBM will no longer get credit.

+ By creating custom attribution models you can generate last click reports at a platform specific level. This will let you see your paid search on a Last Paid Search click model, so you can compare your results with AdWords.

Want to look beyond the Last Click?

Now it’s clear how the platforms report what’s happening at the end of the path to conversion, we can start to look beyond the last click. We can help expose the true customer journey, understanding what’s feeding the funnel, what’s nurturing leads, and what’s causing customers to convert. Get in touch so we can help you understand your customers’ journeys.

To view the article written by Harriet Checkley, please visit Periscopix's blog.